Ten states to establish retail policies, says RAI

The policy would help the sector to grow better, said Kumar Rajagopalan, CEO of RAI

The Retail Association of India (RAI) is expecting around 10 states in the country to come out with retail policies, which would help the sector to grow further.

While the retail industry is the front end of various customer facing industries, the sector has not been considered as an industry and systems are not in place to support the growth, said Kumar Rajagopalan, chief executive officer of RAI.

Speaking to reporters in the sidelines of the Chennai Retail Summit - 2015, organised by RAI, he said that the association has been requesting the State governments to come up with policy on retail and at least nine or ten of them have shown interest to work out a system.

"The retail sector is contributing around 15 per cent of the GDP. It is also the last mile contact for various industries. However, there are several issues this sector facing and there should be systems in place to address them," he added.

He said that the Maharashtra government has come out with a draft policy, while Andhra Pradesh, Telengana and Karnataka are also some of the States which are contemplating on the idea of a policy. When the Goods and Service Tax regime comes into existence, the retail sector would be more important considering those would be the points where the highest amount of tax collected and policy related to the sector would help the particular states to work better, he added.

The RAI's demands that the policy is required to put systems for the retailers to operate all the days in a year, while at present there should be specific holidays for the shops or the retailer should get permission to work on some specific days. There should also be amendments in the labour regulations to enable the retailers to work more days and to recognise part time labours. It also said that similar to the exemptions given for IT industry to employ women workers without time restrictions, the retailers should be allowed to employ women workers if the retail establishment take responsibility about the safety and security of these workers.

He added that at present, the retailers has to get at least 50 licenses or permissions from various government departments to start business and these has to be brought under a single window clearance system. Malls, which are developed with high capex and maintained with high opex are to be considered as industry and should be given the necessary license to function without waiting till the building is constructed, he added.

Apart from Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Telengana, he said that the association has discussed the need for policy with Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Kerala, among others, added Rajagopalan.